There's no ignoring social media, it's everywhere you look. Facebook currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide and that figure is growing at an alarming rate. According to Econsultancy, MySpace experiences in excess of 60 million unique users each month and earlier this year the BBC reported that Twitter has reached an estimated 10 million users in just over 3 years. LinkedIn has just celebrated its 45-millionth membership and it's been suggested that YouTube is likely to stream videos to around 375 million unique visitors during this year alone.
Social media has really gathered in momentum and importance during recent months and search engines are already responding. Microsoft's Bing and search giant Google both recently announced deals with Twitter to offer real-time search results from the micro-blogging site, with Bing also announcing a deal with Facebook and Google signing an agreement with MySpace to add music to its search results.
But what does this mean for your business? It means that you now have the ability to communicate on an equal level with your social customers or consumers. A recent study by eMarketer into the attitudes of internet users showed that 70% of people are more willing to engage with a company or brand that has a presence in new media. It's a huge opportunity, it's changing how we do business and those that get it are going to win.
Recently we have seen a transition away from channel media, the big brand campaign through broadcast and print that used to have the minds of the whole nation captivated. The rise of social networks means that you are always on a campaign, the term campaign is dead.
However, if you are planning to utilise social media for your business, it's really important to know who you're targeting. To get you started, here are a few tips:
- Find out where your website is being mentioned by searching for it on www.quarkbase.com
- Think about the terms that are related to your business i.e. your website URL, company name, products, niche categories and even employees, and search for them on sites that monitor discussions on social networks, like www.whostalkin.com and www.samepoint.com
- Find out who your industry influencers are in the top social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn
- Look at trends that are showing in Twitter and online within your industry by using tools like http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall, http://trend.icerocket.com and www.trendhunter.com
- If you get stuck on a topic try www.cluuz.com to help open up your mind, this is a great one for beginners.
Bear in mind that social media is all about conversations and trading information, ideas and free content, so you have to think about how to approach people and what you're going to say. You don't just walk into a pub in the middle of nowhere and expect to know everyone in the room, you have to go in there and get to know each person and maybe go back another couple of nights, and you're not going to do that straight away.
It's like going back to the old days of haggling in the marketplace. You're standing there and the person you're dealing with is right in front of you so they have to respond and be legitimate and authentic, they can't pull the wool over your eyes; companies mustn't lose sight of this.
To really engage your audience you need to make things more visible and make content more available, and downloadable. You need to make sure that whatever content you're creating, you're giving it legs. For example, you might have just written an email and think, actually someone might want to read this, why aren't I putting it on my blog? From there you might get it into your Twitter feed and onto your Facebook page, and what started out as an email is now in all these different places, connecting with people and encouraging interaction, and that's what it's all about.
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